Salary Budget Is Used To Pay Mayor's Lawyer Council Wouldn't Pay $12,439

May 13, 1986|by DAVID M. ERDMAN, The Morning Call

An overdue $12,000 bill for legal advice to Allentown Mayor Joseph S. Daddona while he battled City Council over his right to reappoint his long- time associate, Joseph L. Rosenfeld, has forced the city to dip into its budget for employee salaries.

The administration has sought approval from City Council to pay the bill, which was owed to Allentown attorney Joan R. Sheak since Jan. 16, but has been unable to get the necessary signatures on a resolution that would have drawn money out of the general fund.

City Finance and Administration Director Howard Kunik said the administration has tapped the law bureau's budget for employee salaries "as a last resort." Said Kunik, "We had no choice. We had a bill to pay. Council wouldn't authorize it and something had to be done."

The bill, totaling $12,439, was run up from November through December of last year as Sheak prepared the mayor for what could have beenan unprecedented court fight between the him and council over Rosenfeld, former city solicitor.

Rosenfeld has been a political associate of Daddona since the 1960s and council had been complaining that his loyalty to the mayor was interfering with his objectivity in city legal opinions. At an impasse over the issue, council and the mayor began heading for court when council tried to make a law that would have required the board's approval for Rosenfeld's reappointment.

Daddona, concerned that council's law would erode the mayor's right to appoint his department heads, defended the $12,439 bill, saying it was necessary to prepare his case for court to protect the city's executive powers. Council members, on the other hand, have criticized the bill, saying the reappointment question could have been resolved by having it reviewed by a panel of lawyers.

The money to pay Sheak's bill will come from funds allocated for a secretary's position in the law bureau that has been vacant since the secretary was transferred to another city job last year, according to Kunik.

Karl Kercher, executive assistant to the mayor, said the move "does sort of close that position down." The $23,000 law clerk position has gone unfilled as part of the city's general cost-cutting strategy, which is delaying the filling of vacancies. But the position has been in limbo, pending review of workload.

The resolution seeking general fund money for the Sheak bill had been submitted to council by City Solicitor Thomas C. Anewalt, who heads the law bureau. Anewalt did not return several messages left for him yesterday in both the city solicitor's office and at his private law practice.

City Clerk Elizabeth Borneman said the resolution never reached council's agenda because "we needed two signatures to get it on theagenda and we never got the signatures." Borneman said both she and council president Watson W. Skinner Jr. polled council members about the resolution but could not get any to sign.

Skinner said council objected to resolution wording that would have transferred the general fund money into the law bureau budget, a move Skinner said would have implied that council approved of the expense.

"Our feeling was that the money should have come out of the mayor's budget since he authorized it," said Skinner. He said council, although in disagreement with Daddona's seeking the legal advice, would have reluctantly authorized payment of the bill if it would have been made clear the bill was an expense of the mayor's office. He said council did not question whether Sheak's bill was valid.

Daddona said he had an agreement from "at least three members of council" that they would have approved the resolution for the payment of the bill if the resolution would have made it clear that the money was to come out of his office expenses.

"They had a valid argument there," Daddona said. "If it was transferred out of the solicitor's office, it would have appeared as though this was a fee initiated by council . . . but it wasn't. It was the administration's litigation against council and it should have been an administration-related bill. I guess the resolution should have been worded differently."

The two sides never ended up in court but resolved their dispute by allowing Rosenfeld to stay on as special counsel to the mayor, while Anewalt was appointed as the new city solicitor.